Screw it, I just did it. And wound up adding more to Brendan's emotional state. Made sense. I should listen closer to my instincts on this book. I'm being guided through its final stages by those who know the story and their character better than I ever could.
Right now, Book Two is 484 pages, 108,000 words. And while I tell myself I'm not going to do a new draft, I'm making changes as I go along to align it better with Book One...and it's going to wind up a third draft, anyway.
So here's the last of Chapter One, AKA: Rebirth.
-----
“Bren?” asked the kindest voice one could imagine. “Are ya all right, son?”
I couldn’t answer. Couldn’t think of words to say.
A woman wandered into my room, looking about, short and round and hair black as coal, with eyes as kind as any you’d see. I'd not seen her since Da's wake but remembered her enough to know she was Ma's sister. But what’s this? Aunt Mari was in Houston. In America.
What the bloody hell was this!?
She saw me in the bathroom and came over, wiping her hands on a dishrag. “Are ya all right?”
I made myself nod, afraid of her, for some reason, and tried to pull myself back to my feet.
She came over to help me. “Come along, me boy; back to bed. You’ll need a bit more time to rebuild your strength.”
I backed away from her. She seemed not to notice, just took me under the arm and guided me from the washroom.
I finally managed to croak out, “Aunt Mari? What...what’s this?”
“Don’t ya remember, Bren? Do ya recall anything?” I shook my head as...
Ma slapped me, screaming, “What have you done? What have you done?” and Eamonn pulled her back and Father Jack joined them but I hit him and Danny was to one side to whispering and I’d never seen him so white and afraid and near weeping, but why was he in my home when he was in Armagh, and how was I here when I was in the Waterside waiting for Joanna and...and...
I coughed. Over and over until finally...
“Where...where am I?” I asked as Aunt Mari put me back in the bed and pulled a sheet up to cover me. Then she turned to set a small circular fan to going. I hadn't even noticed the bloody thing.
“Good. Two coherent questions in a row. There were some feared you’d never come out of it.”
“...Aunt Mari...?”
She gave me a look that could mean a thousand things, then she said, soft and easy, “You’re in my home. In Houston. They sent you here after...well...”
After...
White filled the air with smoke and debris and a single child’s leg flipped through the air twisting over and around like some form of ballet and Joanna fought to free herself as the flames danced, danced, danced closer and closer and filled the world and the sound of someone screaming in my voice crushed my ears and...
I gasped. Gulped in air. Sharp hideous whimpers burst from me. Aunt Mari wrapped me in her arms. Held me close to her. Smoothed my hair.
“Shh-shh-shh-shh-shh, me boy. You’re all right now. You’re safe here.”
It took me some moments to stop breathing so fast and sharp, but her holding me did much to slow my pain so I could whisper, “I'm not in Derry. I'm gone from Derry. I'm here. Here. How long?”
She hesitated. I pulled away from her, my eyes begging, so she murmured, “Just over five month.”
Five months?
Five bloody months gone to nothing?
Five months since...since... Joanna was no longer.
I had seen her die. I tried to fight off the horror growing within me, for a deep part of me acknowledged I could do nothing to change it. She’d be long buried by now. Food for those bloody fucking ants and other creatures that feasted on the dead, with no thought of them who’d dreamed with us and hoped with us and prayed with us and loved us and...and...
Joanna kissed me by the door and smoke enveloped us and flames laughed around us and...
That god damned hideously awful blinding white filled my world with silence.
No comments:
Post a Comment